Tone and case in Sidaamu Afo : a contibution towards understanding the relationship between tone and the three basic cases (nominative, genitive and accusative) in Sidaamu Afo

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide a preliminary suprasegmental analysis of the three basic cases (nominative, genitive and accusative) in Sidaamu Afo (Sidaama). In Sidaamu Afo, the unmarked case is the accusative. In the accusative, the last vowel of the noun is -e(e), -a(a) or -o(o). In Sidaamu Afo the accusative, the citation form and the form the noun is inflected when used as the predicative (PIV) together with the copula suffix, are segmentally alike. When inflected in the nominative or in the genitive, k-class nouns are segmentally marked by replacing the last vowel of the stem into -u/-i. The alternation between -u/-i depends on whether the noun is modified by an attribute or not: the unmodified forms of the nominative (nom.U) and of the genitive (gen.U) are marked with –u, while the modified forms (nom.M and gen.M) end with -i. In the t-class, nouns always preserve the original vowel in the paradigm nouns, and are segmentally unmarked, except in the unmodified genitive, where the stem of the noun presents the suffix -te. Using data from the field, and by means of the acoustic analysis of the fundamental frequency, the thesis explores the tonal contrasts between nom.U and gen.U, between nom.M and gen.M and between the accusative, the citation form and PIV. The thesis provides evidence of a tonal difference between nom.U and gen.U: nom.U gen.U final vowel final vowel/suffix K-class -û -ú Ø T-class -ê/-â/-ô -é/-á/-ó -tê Based on the current data, some hypotheses about a tonal difference between nom.M and gen.M or between accusative, citation form and PIV are formulated and discussed in the thesis.